Don't criticise the government!

creeper1

It's easy for people to be so wise now. Yes so many of the problems of the economy were caused by a housing boom so now PS jobs must pay well, deposits at banks have to guaranteed to give reassurance etc.

Everyone rightly points to the housing boom as a source of the problems.

It is so popular to rip into the government and say it should have done domething to contain the increase in house prices. Oh a property tax should have been levied people say maybe in 2003 or 2004. What utter horsemanure! So easy to be wise now!

I remember proposals being suggested for a property tax. Shaun O'Rourke on the radio said it would be political suicide. There would be no stomach at all from the Irish people for such a tax. You see the problem is Irish people have always hated tax. Boom or no boom.

So I just want to make the point to all those anti FFs that you get the goverment that you deserve. FF have been elected again and again as the sovereign will of the Irish people. So hold your criticisms please. You must always respect the office .

starbelgrade

creeper1 wrote: »

It's easy for people to be so wise now. Yes so many of the problems of the economy were caused by a housing boom so now PS jobs must pay well, deposits at banks have to guaranteed to give reassurance etc.

Everyone rightly points to the housing boom as a source of the problems.

It is so popular to rip into the government and say it should have done domething to contain the increase in house prices. Oh a property tax should have been levied people say maybe in 2003 or 2004. What utter horsemanure! So easy to be wise now!

I remember proposals being suggested for a property tax. Shaun O'Rourke on the radio said it would be political suicide. There would be no stomach at all from the Irish people for such a tax. You see the problem is Irish people have always hated tax. Boom or no boom.

So I just want to make the point to all those anti FFs that you get the goverment that you deserve. FF have been elected again and again as the sovereign will of the Irish people. So hold your criticisms please. You must always respect the office .

Droll troll.

Amhran Nua

creeper1 wrote: »

It is so popular to rip into the government and say it should have done domething to contain the increase in house prices. Oh a property tax should have been levied people say maybe in 2003 or 2004. What utter horsemanure! So easy to be wise now!

A property tax is only dealing with the symptoms. If the financial regulator had been doing half a job we wouldn't be in nearly as much bother. Then again, I guess he did the job he was paid to do.

creeper1 wrote: »

So I just want to make the point to all those anti FFs that you get the goverment that you deserve. FF have been elected again and again as the sovereign will of the Irish people. So hold your criticisms please. You must always respect the office .

Eh no, a small percentage of the populace that wasn't worn to the bone with the leering corruption of Irish politics voted, and of those a smallish percentage actually voted FF as a first preference. So we got the government we were too sick of looking at to actually vote.

I guarantee you that is changing though.

asdasd

Everybody who bought a property caused the boom. The evidence about the bubble was published for years - like from McWilliams and others.

Sponge Bob

starbelgrade wrote: »

Droll troll.

Not even . Likely A Green Party or SF Hack rather than an FF Hack based on their widdly contribution to Boards to date

asdasd

Everybody feel free to address the points.

Pretend there is someone from outside Ireland lurking here. To blame FF ( Lurker: That is Fianna Fail the majority party inthe Government coalition) you would have to show that the people who voted for Fianna Fail were not voting for another party with a diametrically different view on the property market, and the bubble.

Produce that evidence and it is indeed FF and the people who voted for them who are responsible for the fine mess we find ourselves in.

Otherwise I blame we as a society.


i say "we" but I mean you. Since I didnt buy a house.

P. Breathnach

asdasd wrote: »

Everybody who bought a property caused the boom...

I take it you mean "bubble".

I would lay more blame on the financial sector, who offered ever-larger loans, putting more money at the disposition of purchasers, and fuelling bidding wars.

starbelgrade

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Not even . Likely A Green Party or SF Hack rather than an FF Hack based on their widdly contribution to Boards to date

Or just a wind-up merchant.. here is his views on the people of Britain, as posted recently on another forum...

"Jeremy Kyle is just like a random cross section of Britain. Ofcourse not everyone in Britain has been on Jeremy Kyle but if you were to pick randomly 20 people of the streets of Manchester or whatever hole you find most of them are typical of the guests on this show."

I love forums, I love political discussions, but wind-up merchants. Blah.

creeper1

My comments on the need for the EU to assist Ireland are not a contradiction. Ireland is in a hell of a tight spot. I am beginning to see how just how bad it is now. As for the UK, I have already established that they are finished. They are gone. Forget about them. What I dread is that Ireland will follow them into the abyss.

What gets on my nerves now is the armchair now-it-alls whining about "oh and wasn't it obvious house prices were too high" I am calling that bull manure. Hindsight is always 20-20. People just trying to escape responsibility for the things that they done.

Now on the Jeremy Kyle comment. Yes the UK is worse for chavs (I hope we can agree on that) but Dublin has it's growing population of scangers. And in the country they are becoming prevalent. Again I am concerned about Ireland imitating the UK in this dreadful culture. You can see the drug use, young girls pushing prams - it's disgusting.

However it's sort of inevitable when a counrty goes to the dogs that normal people start to become chavs (scangers, knackers, whatever). I sort of don't blame them. No work, no future why not just shoot up and have unprotected fun.

I hate this flak directed at me. I can see the big picture. I might not know every policy of every political party in Ireland but I do know that taxes that might have stopped the property bubble overheating would have been vigorously opposed by the genral population.

My point is that most of the anger directed at FF is misplaced or to quote an often used phrase "we are where we are"

gurramok

creeper1 wrote: »

I hate this flak directed at me. I can see the big picture. I might not know every policy of every political party in Ireland but I do know that taxes that might have stopped the property bubble overheating would have been vigorously opposed by the genral population.

My point is that most of the anger directed at FF is misplaced or to quote an often used phrase "we are where we are"

And your party was at the helm of the mess. 100% guilty.

By the way with regard sovereign will. I don't remember ever seeing a NAMA been on the FF manifesto in 2007, do you?

Seth Brundle

People may have boutght the houses but its somewhat unfair to blame them for the bubble when you had the likes of Bertie telling people to commit suicide.
The reality is that the government of the day all had a role in highlighting the problems and ensuring that an adequate result was achieved. However, whan the likes of the regulators office seemed to spend their entire time making adverts on busses and not ensuring that the banks followed the lending rules, it is evident that the entire government failed. We had a cabinet that allowed recklesness and we had an opposition that didn't shout loud enough.

Amhran Nua

kbannon wrote: »

we had an opposition that didn't shout loud enough.

Sure why would they, they're getting paid either way. All the perks, none of the responsiblity.

Long Onion

creeper1 wrote: »

It's easy for people to be so wise now. Yes so many of the problems of the economy were caused by a housing boom so now PS jobs must pay well, deposits at banks have to guaranteed to give reassurance etc.

Everyone rightly points to the housing boom as a source of the problems.

It is so popular to rip into the government and say it should have done domething to contain the increase in house prices. Oh a property tax should have been levied people say maybe in 2003 or 2004. What utter horsemanure! So easy to be wise now!

I remember proposals being suggested for a property tax. Shaun O'Rourke on the radio said it would be political suicide. There would be no stomach at all from the Irish people for such a tax. You see the problem is Irish people have always hated tax. Boom or no boom.

So I just want to make the point to all those anti FFs that you get the goverment that you deserve. FF have been elected again and again as the sovereign will of the Irish people. So hold your criticisms please. You must always respect the office .

This is just a pointless post - of course people objected to levies in the boom years, people always object to levies. Now that we are in the depths of a serious recession, people are still objecting to levies. The government did what they belived would keep them in power for the longest period, again, all governments do that can you stae with any certainty that the situation would be any different had Labour or FG been in power?

No-one forsaw the bust because they didn't want to (as for McWilliams and Lee, if you preach doom for the whole of your life, you will probably be right every now and then) the people amongst us who were prudent and lived sensibly are still ok now, those of us who were reckless are goosed. You reap what you sow.

Dannyboy83

creeper1 wrote: »

My comments on the need for the EU to assist Ireland are not a contradiction. Ireland is in a hell of a tight spot. I am beginning to see how just how bad it is now. As for the UK, I have already established that they are finished. They are gone. Forget about them. What I dread is that Ireland will follow them into the abyss.

What gets on my nerves now is the armchair now-it-alls whining about "oh and wasn't it obvious house prices were too high" I am calling that bull manure. Hindsight is always 20-20. People just trying to escape responsibility for the things that they done.

Now on the Jeremy Kyle comment. Yes the UK is worse for chavs (I hope we can agree on that) but Dublin has it's growing population of scangers. And in the country they are becoming prevalent. Again I am concerned about Ireland imitating the UK in this dreadful culture. You can see the drug use, young girls pushing prams - it's disgusting.

However it's sort of inevitable when a counrty goes to the dogs that normal people start to become chavs (scangers, knackers, whatever). I sort of don't blame them. No work, no future why not just shoot up and have unprotected fun.

I hate this flak directed at me. I can see the big picture. I might not know every policy of every political party in Ireland but I do know that taxes that might have stopped the property bubble overheating would have been vigorously opposed by the genral population.

My point is that most of the anger directed at FF is misplaced or to quote an often used phrase "we are where we are"

No offense but this is awful nonsense you're writing.

These regulators and people in government had a job to do (we pay them to do that job). They knew exactly 'what' was going to happen as a result of the strategies they pursued - the only uncertainty was 'when' it would happen.
I can remember back as far as late 2004/early 2005, people were talking about the housing bubble and people were talking about Dell pulling out of Limerick and how our competitiveness had been eroded etc.

gurramok

Long Onion wrote: »

No-one forsaw the bust because they didn't want to (as for McWilliams and Lee, if you preach doom for the whole of your life, you will probably be right every now and then)

Thats unfair. They preached and the majority didn't listen as they were up in their noses in the feelgood factor of credit.

Long Onion

gurramok wrote: »

Thats unfair. They preached and the majority didn't listen as they were up in their noses in the feelgood factor of credit.

The problem is that the preached constantly for about 4 years, eventually the cycle ended. Looking at recent recoveries and rallies in equities, it seem that the up-turn is beginning in many countries now it will inevitably come to an end at some point in the future. If we start warning now of another crash we will, of course, be right, but there will be 4-6 years of being wrong in between that all our fans will conveniently ignore once the 'prophecy' is proven.

Amhran Nua

Long Onion wrote: »

it seem that the up-turn is beginning in many countries now

You mean the stimulus programmes are providing a fig leaf while the politicos pray and the media spins like a top. There is no such thing as a jobless recovery.

Long Onion

Amhran Nua wrote: »

You mean the stimulus programmes are providing a fig leaf while the politicos pray and the media spins like a top. There is no such thing as a jobless recovery.

I am not jobless, nor are the 87% of workers in employment on this Island, employment tends to lag behind an economic recovery which is often driven by confidence. You can deny it if you wish.

Amhran Nua

Long Onion wrote: »

I am not jobless, nor are the 87% of workers in employment on this Island, employment tends to lag behind an economic recovery which is often driven by confidence. You can deny it if you wish.

No, stock market recoveries are driven by confidence. Economic recoveries are driven by fundamentals and reality. For example in Ireland, most of our economy was based on construction:

Construction output down almost 40%

Building and construction output fell by almost 40 per cent in the year to the end of June, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The data shows that output decreased by 39.3 per cent over the 12-month period, the second biggest decline in the European Union.

In addition, the value of production in the construction sector declined by 40.6 per cent during the second quarter.

The fall in volume was largely due to a 58 per cent decline in the number of new homes built and a 34 per cent drop in non-residential building.

So where do you imagine this "growth" is coming from? Nothing seems to be growing!

But never mind that, lets look instead at the "recovering" giants, like China, which boasts a growth in its economy this year. What they don't tell you is that this growth is based on them dumping their increasingly useless dollar reserves into their very own credit boom. The key indicator there is their exports:

China's exports continued to decline in August, down 23% from the same month last year.
Official figures show exports fell to $103.7bn, from $134.9bn in August 2008. Exports of almost all major industrial products saw double-digit drops.
The trade surplus fell 45% from August 2008 to $15.7bn, but was up from July.
Recent signs that recession has ended in some major economies, including China's major trading partner Japan, suggest that exports may pick up again.
But separately, Japan's economy grew 0.6% in the third quarter from the previous three months, less than the 0.9% originally estimated.
This was due to fewer private-sector inventories than previously estimated, Japan's finance ministry said.
Japan is the world's second-largest economy.
'Not yet steady'
The Chinese export figures were worse than expected by economists.

And if low cost (China price) export goods are collapsing, what chance is there for the rest of the higher priced goods? Its the same pattern wherever you look, and the sunny outlook media outlets everywhere are trying to sell just does not reflect the reality on the ground. Double dip or dead cat bounce, call it what you like.

Long Onion

Amhran Nua wrote: »

No, stock market recoveries are driven by confidence. Economic recoveries are driven by fundamentals and reality. For example in Ireland, most of our economy was based on construction:

So where do you imagine this "growth" is coming from? Nothing seems to be growing!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0923/breaking27.htm
Don't be so selective with your facts. Just because a large proportion of our boom was based on construction, doesn't mean that we are doomed to stagnate until we begin building again. There are other facets to our economy.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

But never mind that, lets look instead at the "recovering" giants, like China, which boasts a growth in its economy this year. What they don't tell you is that this growth is based on them dumping their increasingly useless dollar reserves into their very own credit boom. The key indicator there is their exports:

And if low cost (China price) export goods are collapsing, what chance is there for the rest of the higher priced goods? Its the same pattern wherever you look, and the sunny outlook media outlets everywhere are trying to sell just does not reflect the reality on the ground. Double dip or dead cat bounce, call it what you like.

You are argunig the other side of the same coin here, now you are assuming that China only exports and has no organic growth opportunities, just as you assumed above that Ireland only builds. We can each hold our opinions, only time will tell if we are right. My money is on a return to growth by the first quarter of next year (global overall) with Ireland lagging behind by about 6 - 9 months. If the medias sunny outlook helps drive this, so be it.

Tim Robbins

creeper1 wrote: »

So I just want to make the point to all those anti FFs that you get the goverment that you deserve. FF have been elected again and again as the sovereign will of the Irish people. So hold your criticisms please. You must always respect the office .

Don't critise the government?

Eh what other forms of critical thinking and expression are you against?

There were some appauling policies or lack of policies. Not just in terms of fueling a boom (e.g. allowing people to make huge sums of money taking out huge loans to land speculate).

But the town planning or lack have has been appauling. All over the country there are blocks and blocks of apartments and high density development in the middle of nowhere. These were the so called starter packages to get people onto "the ladder".

Now half the people who bought them are in negative equity.

FF were in cahoots with developers, bankers, land speculators the only people who these policies actually benefitted.

They failed in their duties to protect the common good and looked after their mates.

Long Onion

Tim Robbins wrote: »

FF were in cahoots with developers, bankers, land speculators the only people who these policies actually benefitted.

I am not a supporter of FF nor never have been and I will be glad to see the back of them, but this is way too generalistic. My wife is neither a land speculator, banker nor developer nor are any of her staff. She has seen average salary growth of 25-30% across the whole site over the past 3 years. Many staff have a quality of life which is vastly improved compared to where they were at previously.

The vast majority of the Irish people have benefitted from the boom years and we were happy to do so. We all have to bear some degree of collective responsibility, but most of us are too reluctant to do so, happy to hope that we'll get away with it.

Amhran Nua

Long Onion wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0923/breaking27.htm
Don't be so selective with your facts. Just because a large proportion of our boom was based on construction, doesn't mean that we are doomed to stagnate until we begin building again. There are other facets to our economy.

Thats great, but the exporting sectors are 90% FDI and thus represent around €50 billion capital flight from the country annually. In no way should we start building again, the economy needs to be turned on its head entirely, which I can't see happening with FG, FF, Labour or the Greens anywhere near power.

Long Onion wrote: »

You are argunig the other side of the same coin here, now you are assuming that China only exports and has no organic growth opportunities, just as you assumed above that Ireland only builds.

I'm assuming nothing of the sort. I'm using the China price as a key economic indicator, which it is.

Long Onion wrote: »

We can each hold our opinions, only time will tell if we are right. My money is on a return to growth by the first quarter of next year (global overall) with Ireland lagging behind by about 6 - 9 months. If the medias sunny outlook helps drive this, so be it.

Well anything is possible.

asdasd

The problem is that the preached constantly for about 4 years, eventually the cycle ended. Looking at recent recoveries and rallies in equities, it seem that the up-turn is beginning in many countries now it will inevitably come to an end at some point in the future. If we start warning now of another crash we will, of course, be right, but there will be 4-6 years of being wrong in between that all our fans will conveniently ignore once the 'prophecy' is proven.

Thats a good example of why Ireland is in difficulty and why Irish people - not their government - is responsible.

Neither Lee, nor Williams said that there would be an end to a boom and that's all. They predicted a property crash causing a severe recession. ( Most recessions, on the other hand, cause the property crashes). They piled statistics about how much private debt was increasing per annum ( 25% at peak, enough to double every 3-4 years), and how this was unsustainable. They poured scorn on the idea that immigration would continue, as immigration was bound up in property which was related to the amount of private debt increase. In other words they argued that the cause of the boom ( they said bubble) was private debt, and not anything else - like favourable demographics. All correct. All obvious to me. My first post on this is my first post here. 4 years ago.

The other side said there would be a slowdown, yes, and maybe even a small retraction, but it would be a mere blip, a soft landing.

So McWilliams and Lee were not predicting a typical cyclical recession, but what happened. A severe recession caused by property collapse. Which is where we are.

If people still think that Mc and Lee are right only because a crash is inevitable, it shows exacltly what they [ Mc and Lee] and we who agreed with them, were up against during the bubble. The "stopped clock is right twice a day" argument is one I have gotten from people who are now in severe negative equity, although to be fair, in most cases those people have come around to seeing Lee and McWilliams as being correct.

However, you still are of the opinion - like many Irish people - that Mc and Lee were merely "lucky", having not read their scary prognosis during the bubble. Since all that information was out there, the responsibility lies with the people who bought houses, having not read McWilliams, or ahving read him and dismissed him. He had two major platforms, a Sunday and a weekly, for years.

Regulation would not have worked, by the way, because the only way to regulate a bubble economy is to burst it. And there was no political desire for that.

asdasd

Well anything is possible.

Davy's are predicting 4% growth in 2011. Good luck with that one. I think that Ireland will grow pretty fast when the bust ends, but it wont happen until 2012, the economy still has 10% to drop, and we will still take 5-10 years to get back to where we were, and hopefully we will have a real economy when we do get there.

I dont think, OP, that the UK is f*cked. Long term Ireland will do better but only because their education system is bad. For now the UK is a very very cheap country in terms of wages.

Tim Robbins

Long Onion wrote: »

The vast majority of the Irish people have benefitted from the boom years and we were happy to do so. We all have to bear some degree of collective responsibility, but most of us are too reluctant to do so, happy to hope that we'll get away with it.

My salary all went into a morgage for a ridiculously overpriced one bed apartment I bought in 2003. It took me 5 years to save up the deposit for it. I would have preferred if my salary never grew and I could have bought a proper home.

I have been on pay freezes for the majority of the last ten years, just like the majority of IT people.

I bought my first car when I was 33. I have hardly been lapping it up and I was always skeptical of many government policies. All I and many other's are doing now is being consistent.Why should we be inconsistent?

Liam Byrne

Long Onion wrote: »

the people amongst us who were prudent and lived sensibly are still ok now

I beg to differ on this; I've lived prudently and sensibly, but I'm worried about my ability to make ends meet at the moment.

Tim Robbins

Liam Byrne wrote: »

I beg to differ on this; I've lived prudently and sensibly, but I'm worried about my ability to make ends meet at the moment.

+1

I put 7K of my SSIA into my morgage. The rest of the money went on a PC and a holiday. Never had any other loan beside my morgage. Never had a credit card debt of more than 200 quid which was payed off in under a month.

Been working since I left college 12 years ago. Never took a year off to go travelling find myself malarky.

My apartment and my wife's apartment between them lost 200K in the last year. If not more. Yes I'm lucky I'll probably never be hungry or have to fight in a war but I think it's ok for us to complain!

Amhran Nua

asdasd wrote: »

Davy's are predicting 4% growth in 2011.

Thats Rossa White, who has been so consistently wrong its not even funny.

Long Onion

Tim Robbins wrote: »

My salary all went into a morgage for a ridiculously overpriced one bed apartment I bought in 2003. It took me 5 years to save up the deposit for it. I would have preferred if my salary never grew and I could have bought a proper home.

I have been on pay freezes for the majority of the last ten years, just like the majority of IT people.

I bought my first car when I was 33. I have hardly been lapping it up and I was always skeptical of many government policies. All I and many other's are doing now is being consistent.Why should we be inconsistent?

Do you not think that you have some responsibility here, after all, you openly admit to paying for a ridiculously overpriced one bed apartment, despite being on regular pay freezes at the time. I am not trying to be personal here by the way, but we can't have things every which way. We can't mumble about how overpriced houses were, hand over the money anyway and then cry foul.

I know a few colleagues who refused to buy because they didn't think the prices were realistic, I bought. They were right, I was wrong - I can't blame eveyone else because I made a choice which turned out to be incorrect.

Long Onion

Tim Robbins wrote: »

+1

I put 7K of my SSIA into my morgage. The rest of the money went on a PC and a holiday. Never had any other loan beside my morgage. Never had a credit card debt of more than 200 quid which was payed off in under a month.

Been working since I left college 12 years ago. Never took a year off to go travelling find myself malarky.

My apartment and my wife's apartment between them lost 200K in the last year. If not more. Yes I'm lucky I'll probably never be hungry or have to fight in a war but I think it's ok for us to complain!

So you lived prudently but hung on to two appartments? Property investment always has risk attached.